Why the meaning of a poem matters less than you might think

Poetry is what gets lost in translation.

— Robert Frost

We are used to texts (not just poems) being a container for some kind of message. Almost everything we read tries to communicate something: to make us aware of a sale down the street, to tell us what an old friend has been doing since we last spoke to them, to argue why the healthcare plan just proposed in Congress is a bad idea. Poems, like these other documents, are also made of words. So it's reasonable that we expect them to also mean something in a similar way. Often, they do—but only to a point. Poetry does more than convey a message.

When we read poetry in a literature class, we're frequently asked to "decode" what's written: what did the poet mean by that? The kinds of poems we read in school often lend themselves well to this exercise, as they're rich in metaphor and allegory, and they can withhold basic situational information, leaving the reader to do some or even most of the work to put together what's happening (a poem might describe a birth, for example, without ever directly and plainly saying "a baby was born"). School is invested in decoding poems over other ways of experiencing poetry because school is only interested in poetry to the extent it helps educators reach their larger goals (especially before college, where at least at liberal arts institutions there’s more value given to creating a well-rounded person and training the next generation of academics than in K-12 education). In school, we largely read poems to develop our ability to interpret difficult texts, to increase awareness of the poets and poetry that society as a whole has decided are culturally important (for example, Shakespeare or The Canterbury Tales or the Harlem Renaissance), and to support social-emotional learning.

But poems are so much more than a student exercise or cultural artifact. Meaning itself doesn't make a poem, and it's at most only part of what can make any given poem worthwhile.

Consider that the poem's explanation does not capture the whole poem. Robert Herrick's short poem "Upon Julia's Clothes," first published in 1648, offers a good illustration:

Whenas in silks my Julia goes,
Then, then (methinks) how sweetly flows
That liquefaction of her clothes.

Next, when I cast mine eyes, and see
That brave vibration each way free,
O how that glittering taketh me!

Here’s how I would explain this poem’s meaning. In the first stanza, the speaker discusses how he loves Julia’s flowing silk clothes. In the second, when he looks and sees the movement of her body and the play of light upon the fabric, his fascination is heightened and he is truly captivated. There's some debate about what exactly the poem describes. Is the "brave vibration" the movement of her breasts or her hips (and does Herrick even intend to be that specific)? Do Julia's clothes come off (is that the liquefaction)? That debate about meaning can certainly be fun, but do we need to pin the poem down to love it?

Basically, the poem is a celebration of the female body and female sexuality. The explanation is not the equivalent of the poem. Which did you enjoy reading more? Which might you feel more compelled to save? You'll probably forget my explanation, but you're much less likely to forget the poem. The explanation has none of the sonic beauty and complexity, none of the neatness of a thought organized into two tercets of (mostly) iambic tetrameter, none of the effect of the aaa bbb rhyme scheme (which for me stretches out each stanza and gives the poem a slight sense of imbalance, since rhymes coming in pairs rather than threes is more common), none of the passion or lecherousness (depending on how you feel about Herrick's description and choice of subject matter). It has none of the peculiar small decisions that contribute to the poem's personality (the repetition of "then," putting "methinks" in parentheses, "O" and the exclamation point in the last line). It has none of Herrick's coyness: how he focuses on the clothes and describes Julia’s body without being overtly graphic (at least by 21st century standards). My description captures nothing of the surprise and impact this poem has on contemporary readers who don't expect something from the 17th century to be sexy. It also does not convey the beauty of the poem’s brevity: Herrick could have written more, but my guess is he decided these two stanzas were closer to perfection as they are.

There's another point I want to make about the meaning: at heart, this poem doesn't say very much. The meaning could be boiled down to: "Julia is hot." Yes, you can build the case for a larger philosophical argument by looking at all Herrick's Julia poems together, set in the context of 17th century English politics of royalists vs Puritans (though this only really matters personally to the extent one is interested in politics and history, and you can love this poem without caring about long-dead English kings and Puritans one way or the other). Some scholars see a fishing metaphor here that expands the meaning, though speaking for myself, I don't find that convincing. At any rate, I don't think Herrick is saying anything all that remarkable here. None of the “deeper” meanings are vital to the poem. As far as arguments against Puritanism go, one could lay out a much more thorough and direct attack in prose. We don't value this poem for its message: it has survived because of the whole package.

To be fair, not all poems are as simple on the level of meaning as this one is. And I’m not saying there’s no joy in coming to understand meaning. And of course, to attempt to separate the meaning from the form, sound, etc… is to create a false dichotomy, since those other aspects of the poem can help create the meaning.

But the point I want to make is that meaning is far from the only joy to be found in poetry. A poem that leans too heavily on meaning probably won’t dazzle us as much as a poem that says something ordinary but displays skill and originality on other levels such as form, diction, and sound. To the extent you’re focused on “getting it,” to the exclusion of other aspects of the poem, you’re missing something about poetry.

Was this helpful to you? I’m in the early stages of a project focused on helping curious but confused readers find their way into the world of poetry. Your comments on what you found useful and where you’d like to see more will enable me to create something of value, and to keep going. Questions or disagreements welcome too!